Fire and Ice
by Liana Goldenquill
Summary: Millicent always thought she'd be Draco's -- not that she loved him; it was about the power. In fourth year, Pansy steps in, and Draco has no need for Millicent, who's upset and looking for power anywhere. Millicent/Pansy, "First Kiss Project" style.


**"Fire and Ice," by Liana Goldenquill **(http://livejournal.com/users/l_goldenquill)

**Pairing**: Millicent/Pansy

**Rating**: Very light PG, probably

**Author's notes**: I'm still not sure how well the title fits; if you can think of a better one, please let me know. Also, if you're reviewing, I'm curious how you got here—through FFN, through a link on my LJ, or through someone else's rec/review page?

**Dedication**: for Kay Taylor (http://livejournal.com/users/kay_taylor), who wrote excellent Narnia femslash.

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Millicent Bulstrode likes to crunch ice.  She has liked to do so for as long as she can remember.  Ice is so pristine and clear and definitely shaped; it looks so hard and implacable.  Yet a few moments of melting, a few crunching chomps, and it's pulverized into glassy shards.  Consumed by Millicent, melting into her body.  The splinters are so easily vanquished, yet the task looked difficult in the beginning.  And then all traces vanish, and what's left behind is only Millicent.  
  
  
Millicent once was in the library, skulking between shelves and pretending to be angry so nobody would come close enough to see she was crying, and she stood on one side of a shelf and listened to a pair of girls on the other side.  
  
"Have you heard about Pansy Parkinson?" asked one girl, and Millicent believed she could place her—she was probably that Hufflepuff third-year who was loud in the dining hall, short and round with golden hair.  "I don't mean to be uncharitable, of course, but. . . ."  
  
"This isn't gossip, is it?" asked the other girl, and Millicent could hear the worried frown in her voice although she couldn't identify the speaker as readily, perhaps because Millicent was thinking, then; she knew Pansy.  Oh yes, she knew Pansy.  "Because, you know—"  
  
"I know," interrupted the blonde.  "But you were the one watching that Slytherin boy, Draco, the other day.  You _know_ you were, too!"  And Millicent knew Draco, too.  Millicent _had_ known Draco—  
  
"What if I _was_ watching him?" the second girl said.  And, a second later, she giggled—no, _tittered_, Millicent realized.  And Millicent was rather surprised by this, having never before heard anyone actually titter.  Even Pansy's laughter only rings like a delicate silver bell, or like a slim wire against crystal.  
  
"Well," said the first Hufflepuff, and lowered her voice, "I heard that Draco was going to leave Pansy, maybe."  Millicent slouched against the shelf, not admitting even to herself that she wanted to hear this.  "Thomas told me Justin said that Blaise had passed him a note, and he wrote in it that Draco said in the dormitory one night that Pansy was all icy cold to him—"  
  
Millicent de-slouched herself in surprise, and began wandering slowly once more.  She had never thought that Pansy might be ice.  She wandered up and down the stacks ruminating on this, and never even noticed when she eventually turned a corner and scared the conversing girls, who fled before her, tittering nervously.  
  
  
For Pansy had never seemed like ice.  Millicent always thought that Pansy is hot and fiery, given to heated silent blasts, liable to burn in all circumstances, and not even dragonhide gloves can protect you.  Nothing can, and no-one.  Millicent knows that too well.  For in Millicent's first year, she was one of Draco's group.  Fast, firm friends—she and him and Vincent and Gregory—and nothing could part them, and Draco was their leader. And to the leader goes the best, Millicent always thought, and she looked, half-anticipating, toward that inevitable day when she, the only girl in their group, would be Draco's.  
  
  
First year, and Millicent hadn't thought terribly much about that aspect, other than to note that whenever partners were chosen up in class, for a project, Vincent and Gregory were inevitably together, which left her and Draco together.  And she didn't much mind, for Draco was the leader, certainly, and her proximity could only help her unofficial rank.  Also, in their first year, they hated Harry, all of them did, but Millicent had never considered that a particularly important thing.  It was easy enough to nod whenever Draco began speaking about Harry's disdain and hatefulness, and to glower at Gryffindors in the halls—all Gryffindors, for who could be bothered telling them apart?  They were all the same, anyway, with their pitying looks and hasty avoidances, and did no-one understand that she _wanted_ to be in Slytherin—with Draco? She didn't understand, yet, that the looks were as much for her face as for her House.  
  
Second year, and Millicent began to look at upper years' courting.  And to look, not timidly, but slowly, around her.  She determined, at last, that it was Draco who would be the most help to her—and his looks didn't hurt, either.  Millicent began to have dreams, not of the nasty things her elder sister whispered to her late at night, but of marriage and power.  Draco would marry her, and she would be his favorite then. And he and she would do wonderful things together, and would be able to scare all of the paltry Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws who annoyed her so with their pitying looks, and they would possibly even do some things with the Death Eaters she was beginning to hear about.  But as their leaders, of course, for Draco could not be other than the leader of any group he was in.  And she was always, always, his second-in-command, for he would trust her and give her power.  Once they were married.  
  
Third year, and Millicent was given to understand, by her elder sister, married now, that this was when 'it all' started.  And nobody told Millicent what 'it all' was, at least no more than her sister had whispered that night when they spoke of the dirty things.  As Millicent looked around, though, she realized that Draco and what he meant to her were more and more attractive.  Power, desire, attention—she was as good as Draco's, she _knew_ it.  And Gregory and Vincent understood that, she knew they did, for they shied away when they stood near her, even when Draco was nowhere near.  Millicent took pride in this for perhaps half a year, at which point she realized that Draco did the same.  _It's all imagination,_ she told herself, or _He's being polite._  But Draco was certainly getting more distant from her, although he and Vincent and Gregory stayed fairly close with each other.  It all was beginning to chafe on her nerves, and Millicent did not consider herself a complicated person.  She kept her course straight, locked on Draco.  She was _his_; it was her _right_ to be his.  
  
Fourth year, and when the four of them returned after the summer, Millicent knew and did not need to be told.  It was in the way Draco's gaze avoided her face, and in the discreet way he shuddered when seeing her was inevitable.  It was in the way he would always try to have Gregory sit on one side of him and Vincent on the other, and she would never be next to him any more.  Still, this wasn't terrible, Millicent believed.  Her dreams of marriage and power faded a bit, but the main part remained; she was still of his group.  She was tolerated on the fringes, and eventually he would _have to marry her, because, well, who else?  And then fourth year's ball came, and Millicent felt that Draco was certainly going to ask her.  This was partially because her dreams were still vivid, and had clung on so long, and partially because she felt his disappointment and despair and indecision.  And then it was the day before the ball, and the evening before, and the morning before, and the hour before, and suddenly Millicent realized that he had not yet asked her.  And then the ball itself, and when Millicent put on her best robe, which was certainly not very 'best,' and slunk around the halls and peeped into the Great Hall, she saw Draco dancing with Pansy, and both were smiling.  Pansy was facing the door, opportunely, and she dared a little smirk over Draco's shoulder, directed at Millicent.  Millicent immediately went back down to her room for a lie-down and a cry to think things over, but as she went, the hot angry tears couldn't be held back.  She barged through younger students, clamoring for a look at the ball, and snapped at them all, and it wasn't long before they learned to hang back, not even venturing glances at Millicent's twisted, lumpy face.  
  
  
And Millicent speaks no more with Draco, nor with Vincent, nor Gregory.  And certainly not with Pansy—not that they had spoken much in the first place—but Pansy was the one who made Millicent's dreams die.  Millicent realizes this, in her dull way; _boys will be boys_, she thinks, _and it's not Draco's fault. _ Pansy is the one whom it's easy to blame, and so Millicent does as the years—first one, then two, then three and four, until they're in their last year—wear on.  She doesn't speak to anyone much, and she hasn't much to do, really.  
  
In class she's quiet, hopes never to be called on, is always one of the slowest few.  Busies herself staring at Draco, whom she still worships, and wondering what he'd want her to do, if there was any way she could regain his favor.  Attends Quidditch matches, but only when Slytherin is playing; she doesn't take her eyes from Draco, because being his was _her_ dream first.  Practices her duelling magics, and other things that Draco's wife would need to know—handy, helpful bits of Dark Magic, to win her more trust, more power.  
  
Millicent doesn't speak, though.  Oh, it's not as if she's utterly silent—she'll ask you to pass the pie, if you're near it, or will wrinkle her brow and work aloud on an Arithmancy problem—but there's no-one, really, for Millicent to talk to; the other Slytherins in her year all speak to Pansy, and so Millicent won't speak to them.  Other Houses' students learned early on that Millicent wasn't someone to be approached, and Millicent has never been quite sure how to go about breaking that down.  She's never been quite sure if she even wants the barrier down, because in a way it's sort of nice to go through life like this.  She's not _bothered_, and she's got all the time in the world to think of whatever she wishes.  Had she more initiative, she might dream of populating the globe with new races; she might become the world's best player of Wizarding Chess or the school's top Ancient Runes student; but she's content simply to envision her future life as Draco's wife.  This takes up almost all of her time, and more besides; most nights, she sits half-dozing on a hassock before the fire to complete her dreams of ordering Death Eaters around on her husband's authority.  
  
And as the years go by—she's had four, remember, to think silently of things—Millicent slowly visualizes her theory of people.  Stated quite simply, everyone _is_ something.  Millicent, for example, believes herself to be a low broad-faced floor clock—just marking time.  Some Hufflepuffs are quivering wide-eyed rabbits with twitching noses, and others turtles.  McGonagall is a set of wire-rimmed glasses, Dumbledore a slightly oversize marble of swirling, mobile blue and white.  Most Ravenclaws are quills, although there are those who are paper, and some are quite different things altogether.  Gryffindors are fairly interchangeable to Millicent's mind, and so she simply believes that they are all lions the size of house cats.  Snape is an unpredictable bottle-green potion in a pristine beaker.  Flitwick is a long, curling, quite astonishingly red feather.  Lockhart was a magnifying mirror when he taught, and Moody a stout wooden staff worn quite smooth.  Hagrid is a higgledy-piggledy tea-stained scrap of blotter paper, and Vector a worn piece of brown sea glass.  Draco is pure _power_.  And Pansy Parkinson is not her delicate namesake, but fire.  
  
  
Until the day when Millicent walks about the library and overhears _Pansy is ice_, and can't help but think about it some more.  And a week later, Millicent has to agree because, to her, Pansy has become ice.  It's in the clarity of her features and the precision of each curl.  It's in the chill of her voice and the sharp edge on her fingernails. It's the icy blast when you get too near, and the freezing façade of perfect politeness if you persist. Pansy isn't hot at all, but cold—and it's a revelation to Millicent, who begins to look about herself intently in case she should be similarly and appallingly mistaken about anyone else.  
  
Millicent begins to stay in the Slytherin Common Room even later at night, now, bundling herself in a tattered green-and-black blanket when it gets chilly, and staring into the flames to think.  It's not something she does particularly quickly, but generally she can use a slow route to get her mind 'round an interesting conclusion, which is what she does in this case and on this night.  
  
She's worrying away at her own description slowly, for perhaps she truly isn't a clock, but a . . . a stone, or a small bit of smooth statue, or a jagged broken bit of iron.  And then she sees a shadow slowly slip past the Common Room's window, late at night when no-one is supposed to stir.  The shadow in question is coming from the boys' wing, down the stairs, and Millicent, whose eyes are nearly shut, watches it begin up the stairs to the girls' rooms before she throws the blanket off and stands upright.  
  
Millicent says nothing, but she's looking at the shadow and its focus is obviously on her. Millicent advances two slow steps, and has her second revelation of the week when she realizes that Pansy, wrapped in a dark cloak and motionlessly watching her, is the shadow.  
  
Pansy steps forward then, restlessly shedding the cloak to permit firelight to flicker across her face and cast deep shadows.  "What is it now," she says with just a bit of a snap in her voice, for who is Millicent to her? Pansy hasn't realized that she is the one who removed Millicent from Draco's circle—not that she would care if she knew, but she doesn't, and Millicent is just someone else to Pansy.  
  
Millicent takes another step forward, too, and a deep breath.  "You were coming from the boys' rooms," Millicent says slowly, and she is just beginning to tingle with her first real scent of power.  Nothing like she thought it would be, this is golden and black and lancing through her with the realization that she holds punishment over Pansy; she can _tell_, she _can_, and if she does, Pansy will be in trouble.  "You were coming from the boys' rooms," Millicent repeats, and then adds, because she feels she needs to, "at one in the morning."  
  
Pansy's face stiffens, and she steps forward again.  "What business is it of yours?"  There's zing in her voice, almost as though she doesn't know she ought to be polite to Millicent, who has power now—power.  
  
The larger girl takes another step closer until they're within a foot of each other, and then another and there's almost no room between them.  Pansy tries to fight the involuntary urge to take a step backward, but she loses and retreats a step, then another.  She turns it into a graceful movement, warily circling Millicent.  
  
Understanding lights suddenly in Millicent's eyes, and she moves faster than she would have thought possible and pins Pansy against the wall without touching her.  "You were with Draco, weren't you?"  Millicent is hurt again with another dream's fading and falling, but that's compensated for by the power she still holds.  She doesn't need Draco's second-hand power, whatever he's willing to fob off onto his wife, now that she's tasted the real thing and has managed to accomplish it herself.  Millicent's eyes narrow and her eyebrows press together as she awaits Pansy's answer, and she's not disappointed.  
  
"What of it?" Pansy's eyes glow, almost, in the firelight, which still casts mysterious shadows across her features.  She's uneasy, not daring to move, but her eyes try to slip from Millicent's face; she doesn't want to look at Millicent, just to get out of here and into her own room.  
  
Millicent's mouth opens as though she were planning to answer something—'_I_ was his,' maybe—but in the end there's nothing to say as she watches Pansy get more uncomfortable, pinioned to the wall by Millicent's unrelenting bulk.  The fire crackles, and Millicent continues to glare at Pansy.  "I could tell," says Millicent at last, but it's not threatening. Her power is slipping; she can feel it leaving, and maybe she _does_ need Draco for his power after all, maybe she _can't_ get her own; there's got to be a way to gain the upper hand again somehow—  
  
Millicent darts forward, surprisingly quickly, and her broad hands pin icy Pansy's delicate upper arms to the rough stone wall, and before Pansy can respond to the threat, Millicent is kissing Pansy.  It's rough, harsh, entirely unlearnt, and angry in a way Pansy has never felt before.  
  
Beyond the initial instinct, Millicent really hasn't a clue what to do, but Pansy knows.  For a fleeting second Pansy considers slipping a slim pink tongue between Millicent's open, sucking lips, as she did with Draco's just an hour ago, but refrains.  But Millicent's eyes are open through naïveté and Pansy's through surprise, and Millicent can see the firelight reflect in Pansy's eyes as she bites the smaller girl's lip.  
  
There are a few seconds of struggling and squirming, and then Pansy's lithe form darts back from Millicent's graceless bulk.  "What were you doing?" snaps Pansy, but her voice is a bit rough, and she doesn't wipe her mouth with the back of her hand.  A tremor of indecision passes through Pansy's body, and she steps forward again, raising her hand to slap Millicent.  
  
_But you are mine,_ thinks Millicent in triumph in the second before the stinging flat of Pansy's hand can hit her. _You were Draco's, and then you were mine.  And I have two things he doesn't, now, and only one of them is power.  And perhaps I don't need him to be powerful._  
  
  
And when Millicent wakes the next morning, she realizes that her visualizations will need revising, for Pansy is neither dangerous fire nor frigid ice, but rather crystal—fragile ice in appearance, yet with hidden depths of multicolored fire waiting to emerge when least expected.  And Millicent herself?  Perhaps, she thinks, she is a stone.  A rough, grey stone, who only needed the least encouragement to chime with the finest crystal.  
  
  
**end**_


End file.
